Senator Stevens is finding himself in hot water. The FBI raided the Republican’s residence in Girdwood, Alaska, looking for evidence on his relationship with an oil-field-service contractor by the name of Bill Allen. Allen, who was been convicted this year of bribing state legislators, oversaw a 2000 renovation project that more than doubled the size of Mr. Stevens’s house; Allen’s company, VECO Corp., has reaped millions of dollars in federal contracts over the years.

Though the matter must await the outcome of the law-enforcement process, a note of caution is in order. It has been corruption more than any other issue that has dragged the Republican Party down in recent years. Having been given a majority in 1994 to root out the corruption of the Democratic Congress, all too many Republicans who came to Washington to do good stayed to do well. Despite the war, “corruption/ethics” ranked highest in voters minds, according to exit polls, when voters threw the GOP out of power.

Mr. Stevens has become a symbol of Republican susceptibility to pork, particularly the idea that taxpayers should be forced to disgorge a half a billion dollars so that a “Bridge to Nowhere” could be constructed connecting two chunks of ice in Alaska, one uninhabited. He even threatened to resign should his favored earmark be removed from the budget. The FBI investigation could yet force his resignation for different reasons. But we’re not so focused on who paid for the ice in the Stevens igloo. The real scandal is not what’s illegal but what’s legal — namely the earmarks that grew a mind-boggling tenfold on the Republican watch.